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--- readable:db.xl:butterfly.shadows.special.issue.immersias [2026/04/21 12:05] – [No. 6: Life on a Plate] anadmin
+++ readable:db.xl:butterfly.shadows.special.issue.immersias [2026/04/21 12:43] (current) – [No. 1:] anadmin
@@ Line 14: / Line 14: @@
 ;#;
-No. 10: Robe Brethren\\
+No. 10: //Robe Brethren//\\
 Director: Wan Yi\\
 Script: Ji Rong
@@ Line 35: / Line 35: @@
 ==== No. 9: Verdantia ====
 ;#;
-No. 9: Verdantia\\
+No. 9: //Verdantia//\\
 Director: Yuan Bo\\
 Script: Bashir Bassett
@@ Line 57: / Line 57: @@
 ==== No. 8: Kaib Mongb Kib ====
 ;#;
-No. 8: Kaib Mongb Kib\\
+No. 8: //Kaib Mongb Kib//\\
 Director: Zi Cheng\\
 Script: Zi Cheng
@@ Line 76: / Line 76: @@
 ==== No. 7: Lolling Grass ====
 ;#;
-No. 7: Lolling Grass\\
+No. 7: //Lolling Grass//\\
 Director: Wen Guang, Wen E\\
 Script: Shu Kuan
@@ Line 97: / Line 97: @@
 ==== No. 6: Life on a Plate ====
 ;#;
-No. 6: Life on a Plate\\
+No. 6: //Life on a Plate//\\
 Director: Bao Chang\\
 Script: Bao Chang, Xue Xie
@@ Line 117: / Line 117: @@
 ==== No. 5: Deep Water ====
+;#;
+No. 5: //Deep Water//\\
+Director: Yong Zheng\\
+Screenwriter: Fu Rong
+;#;
+//Don't touch it, don't make a sound, back away slowly, that thing is not a waterweed...//
+In the Scalegorge Waterscape, the birthplace of the Vidyadhara race, there is a special profession: "Pearlkeeper." During the Vidyadhara's stage of hatching rebirth, they had no means of resisting external threats. Thus, the Pearlkeepers were needed to protect their vulnerable compatriots. Crane used to be a Cloud Knight, but returned to Scalegorge Waterscape to be a Pearlkeeper after retiring. One day, during a routine inspection, Crane came upon some unusual signs. At that time, she didn't know that it was because an evil beast that had been sleeping underwater for thousands of years had awakened... Crane had to join forces with her comrades to battle the evil beast in the dark ancient sea, and protect the vulnerable sacred land of Scalegorge Waterscape...
+//Deep Water// is possibly the first immersia of the evil beast genre. Director Yong Zheng and screenwriter Fu Rong could even be called the inventors of said genre. In addition to this, //Luofu Monster//, //Heliobus Ingenia//, and //Xianzhou Predator// that they collaborated on are also widely regarded as classic evil beast immersias.
+How to impart the sense of overwhelming oppression of evil beasts, how to use the dark and mysterious environment to invoke terror (such as the ancient sea of Scalegorge Waterscape in //Deep Water//), and how to shape the moment when human beings fall into fear and burst into courage when facing evil beasts... It is no wonder that scholars of the immersia genre have a saying: "Memorize all the immersias of Yong Zheng, and you will master evil beast immersias."
+Another point worth mentioning about //Deep Water//:
+The art of Butterfly Immersia is loved by all races in the Xianzhou Alliance, the directors of almost all immersias are foxians.
+This is inevitable... After all, the filming and production of Butterfly Immersias rely on foxians' innately keen mental prowess. Focusing on and regulating the fantasy world requires extraordinary meticulousness and ability. Without this ability, making an immersia is tantamount to creating music for the hard of hearing or painting for the hard of seeing... Strictly speaking, it is not impossible, but very difficult.
+Yong Zheng is undoubtedly an exception. As Vidyadhara, he has become one of the greatest directors in the history of Butterfly Immersia. It is hard to imagine how many difficulties he had overcome to achieve such great success.
+Foxian directors account for an overwhelming majority in the immersia industry. This also leads to another problem: Before Yong Zheng debuted, most of the Butterfly Immersias told the story of foxians from the perspective of foxians. After all, people are better at and more willing to create characters they are familiar with. However, all of Yong Zheng's works in his creative career are from a Vidyadhara's perspective.
+Be it Crane, the brave and fearless Pearlkeeper in //Deep Water//, or Lind, the Vidyadhara scientist who was attacked by their own crazed experiment in //The Xianzhou Predator//, they have all become classic characters in the history of immersia. After Yong Zheng became a household name, more and more works began to bravely choose to tell stories from the perspective of non-foxians.
 ----
 ==== No. 4: Starskiff Pilot ====
+;#;
+No. 4: //Starskiff Pilot//\\
+Director: Sai Hong\\
+Screenwriter: Su Qin
+;#;
+//Sit tight and hold on, get ready for lift-off!//
+A mysterious starskiff pilot who seems to be unremarkable, but in fact has a peculiar skill. Whenever a customer encounters a difficult problem — as small as being late for work, or as big as catching hoodlums, he will say with his signature smile: "Sit tight and hold on, get ready for lift-off!" After which, he starts up that mysterious combat starskiff and uses his superb piloting skills to complete the mission and solve the problem.
+The //Starskiff Pilot// franchise has released 927 films so far across three directors. Each film has had a good box office reception. Frankly speaking, this work, like all fast-paced immersias, has no plot depth, no twists, and few character arcs, only rushing adrenaline. But it is this simple, straightforward, and raw type of experience that has become the longest-running immersia series on the Xianzhou.
+However, please forgive me for being curt, but the experts invited for this issue put this immersia in the "Millennium Top Ten" list (at fourth place no less) to show that they are not biased toward the "sophisticated" and "avant-garde," but are also able to enjoy the fast-paced immersias that general fans love to see.
 ----
 ==== No. 3: Last Evenings on Luofu ====
+;#;
+No. 3: //Last Evenings on Luofu//\\
+Director: Wu He\\
+Screenwriter: Wu He
+;#;
+//— I sometimes feel that life is thirty percent disappointment, thirty percent panic, thirty percent helplessness, and ten percent shared by suffering and love.\\
+— If you were given another chance, would you want to live life over again?\\
+— Of course.//
+Hai Yuan is a Xianzhou merchant who lived to be 1100 years old and is on the verge of being stricken with mara. Now, he is almost unable to think about anything smoothly, and can only endure the nibbling away of the plague. On the eve of going to the Ten-Lords Commission to accept his end, Hai Yuan had a long dream. He dreamed that everyone who appeared in his thousand-year life was waiting for him in a vast wasteland. In the long dream, Hai Yuan discussed life, philosophy, religion, and art with the people in his memories and finally achieved reconciliation with himself. At the end of the immersia, Hai Yuan woke up at dawn and walked into the Ten-Lords Commissiono with a smile.
+Wu He is the youngest director and screenwriter to be selected for the Millennium Top Ten. He won the Best Newcomer at the Exalting Sanctum Immersia Festival with //Mount Dingjun//, and won three awards of Best Immersia, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Substitution Experience at the Exalting Sanctum Immersia Festival with //Last Evenings on Luofu//.
+However, compared with the explosive box office performance of //Mount Dingjun//, //Last Evenings on Luofu// might even be considered to have not been a big hit. This is completely understandable as many people are willing to go to immersias to realize their dreams, but how many people are wiling to go to immersias to really have a long dream?
+But there is no doubt that //Last Evenings on Luofu// is a truly great piece of work. It dives deep into people's hearts, explores fears and desires, and shows how a person can achieve self-consistency and reconciliation even in the last moments of their life. It can be said to be closer to an autopsy on the human condition than an immersia.
+Some harsher critics believe that Wu He, as a foxian director, has a wrong understanding of being mara-struck, and that there are some unscientific aspects in his treatment of dreams. In reality, Wu He didn't intend to base his work on scientific principles at all. What this work tells is by no means a "mara-stricken dream" in the literal sense, but a highly conceptualized and symbolic analysis into the psyche.
+It's true, foxians and the Vidyadhara won't become mara-struck, but we can all see a reflection of our own lives from this immersia... All our disappointments, our sorrows, our unwillingness and reluctance — but also, an answer to the most difficult question in the world: "Why should we carry on living?"
+"For that percent of love."
 ----
 ==== No. 2: Reignbow Arbiter ====
+;#;
+No. 2: //Reignbow Arbiter//\\
+Director: Xiao Tong\\
+Screenwriter: Yu Chun
+;#;
+//I urge you to forget about life and death. Let us fight now to turn the tide. I would like to teach you to be ever victorious, brave, and enduring.//
+About four thousand to five thousand years ago, the Xianzhou experienced the chaotic Three Sufferings Era. From a wider perspective, the collapse of social order on each Xianzhou ship is an insignificant bit of history. Instead, the bloody battle of life and death was the tone of that era. Reignbow Arbiter was not Reignbow Arbiter at that time, but a mortal hero. Reignbow Arbiter led the Xianzhou people during the magnificent confrontation with the Denizens of Abundance, which ultimately destroyed the giant tree "Muldrasil" of the Wingweavers at the cost of self-burning, but saving the Xianzhou Alliance. //Reignbow Arbiter// is an epic immersia based on this legend.
+To this day, there are still a group of fundamentalists who think that Reignbow Arbiter is an immersia that blasphemes Reignbow Arbiter. This is because it allows the experiencer to enter the perspective of Reignbow Arbiter to experience the epic final battle as Reignbow Arbiter, and even experience the process of Reignbow Arbiter's rise to godhood after death, which can be said to be disrespectful.
+But in reality, only by experiencing this powerful epic from such a perspective can the experiencer truly appreciate how much blood Reignbow Arbiter and the brave people of the Xianzhou shed to achieve the current peace for the Xianzhou to rest and recuperate.
+But even putting aside the vexatiousness of these fundamentalists, //Reignbow Arbiter// remains a controversial masterpiece. The biggest controversy is that when Yu Chun wrote the script, the historical facts were modified based on personal preference, which is considered unacceptable to many experiencers.
+For example, Yu Chun downplayed the existence of the heliobi leader, the "Flint Emperor," in the entire immersia. Yu Chun even summed up the arrow of the Reignbow Arbiter that destroyed the Ambrosial Arbor as "an advanced awakening of an Aeon's power in a mortal body," which is an obvious violation of historical facts. At present, historians generally believe that the arrow at that time borrowed the power of the Flint Emperor, but Yu Chun personally dislikes heliobi and revised that part of the story.
+However, flaws cannot detract from the beauty. Controversial masterpieces are still masterpieces. But in my personal view, I still hope that you can read some more reliable historical materials (such as //Ode to Reignbow Path//) before experiencing //Reignbow Arbiter// to avoid being misled by this immersia's dramatized version of events.
 ----
-==== No. 1: ====
+==== No. 1: The Bridge to Grandma's Home ====
+;#;
+No. 1: //The Bridge to Grandma's Home//\\
+Director: Zi Run\\
+Screenwriter: Zi Run
+;#;
+//— Doing this will only end badly\\
+— No one has ever had a good ending in this world.//
+As the Three Sufferings Era had passed for thousands of years, the social order of the Xianzhou has become more stable, and the Brotherhood has become history. However, the remaining members are still trying to continue the past glory in an era that does not belong to them. The old "code of conduct" has broken down, and the new members have no bottom line and are unscrupulous. It was the Brotherhood that caused the last underground war before completely dying out.
+//The Bridge to Grandma's Home// is a classic Robe Brethren immersia, also know as "the last Robe Brethren immersia." Unlike most Robe Brethren immersias, the main perspective of //The Bridge to Grandma's Home// is not a member of the Brotherhood, but the daughter of the boss, Little Rain. It is plain as day to anyone with a perceptive eye that Little Rain is the embodiment of Direct Zi Run.
+In //The Bridge to Grandma's Home//, the Brotherhood has shed its polished exterior, and the brethren are just a group of despicable, cruel, and shameless criminals. Zi Run once lived in such an environment, and as a child, fully experienced the extensive bloody conflict within the Brotherhood.
+The production company Spooky Fantasy Entertainment did not agree with Zi Run's filming of this immersia with a strong autobiographical nature. On the one hand, autobiographies possess strong subject matters specific to the protagonist, which is considered to hinder the substitution of the experiencer. On the other hand, at that time, Robe Brethren immersias had not yet gone out of fashion yet. This led them to worry that such a subversive Robe Brethren immersia would not have a particularly good box office response.
+In the end, Zi Run had to pay out of pocket to film the immersia. As results would prove, the production company's judgment was wrong. //The Bridge to Grandma's Home// became the most popular Butterfly Immersia at the box office that year, and was also recognized as the greatest Butterfly Immersia in history.
+Since then, Zi Run left Spooky Fantasy Entertainment and used the earnings to create Elsholtzia Fantasy Entertainment. The former went bankrupt soon after.
+There is another thought-provoking detail about //The Bridge to Grandma's Home//. In real life, a young Zi Run was adopted by an officer when the Cloud Knights completely wiped out the Brotherhood, and lived a happy, enviable lifie from then on. But at the end of //The Bridge to Grandma's Home//, Little Rain died in her father's arms during his last hurrah.
+Perhaps deep down, Zi Run really did die that night when the Brotherhood was wiped out.